A blog about my ideas, creative process, failures and successes while cooking, creating cakes and planning parties. Thanks for listening so Doug doesn't have to!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

How I made a camouflage cake, inside and out!

First came the request for a camouflage cake for a young boy who loves the outdoors, only one requirement...no fondant. Next came the internet search and of course, a search on Cake Central where I get most of my inspirations! There were many great design ideas and then I decided to take it to the next level and make the cake itself camouflage!

First, I mixed a white cake mix (dyed green), a chocolate cake mix and a yellow cake mix, separately. After preparing my pans I spooned a little of each batter in random spots until I had the proper amount of batter in each pan. I did not swirl the batters. I then baked and cooled the cakes as usual.

Here is a photo of the inside of the cake as I split to fill with chocolate frosting.

Pretty cool, huh?

Next I crumb coated each cake and stacked. This is a 4" high 6" round cake stacked off center on a 2" high 10" round cake off center. The only reason I crumb coated was to "seal in" the chocolate crumbs. I don't really think this step is necessary, the camo design will cover the entire surface.

Next step was to mix the buttercream colors. I chose buttercup yellow with a little brown, moss green, and plain vanilla and chocolate buttercream. Now I know these are not technically camo colors but I didn't want the cake to be all drab colors. I filled my piping bags and started piping randoms blobs and lines all over the cake.

The cake went into the refrigerator to firm up and crust. After about 20 minutes I removed the cake and started to roll the surface with a 4" high density foam roller, the Melvira method. I couldn't beleive my eyes, it was actually working! (You can see on the bottom tier where I started rolling before I remembered I needed to take a photo.) I continued to smooth out the surface and added a few plastic figures.

The finished cake...

Happy Birthday Carter!

Here is a photo of the inside of the cake after cutting...

I can see using this for different occasions, for example, school colors and holiday colors. The design pretty much stayed in place as I rolled the surface so this may even work for something like stripes in buttercream. Hmmm, I'll have to try that.

the reason I ask is because in the first picture it looks like you used two of each size...then you state that the bottom layer is a 10" round cake 2' high (which would only be one pan) and the top is a 6" round 4" high which would be two 6" pans. I am trying to make this cake and want it to turn out JUST like yours! I love it! Thanks! Also do you only split the 10" and then just put icing between each 6"?

Good catch! I did use two 10" pans, so I'm trying to recall exactly what I did :) I used 3 cakes mixes which equal about 12 cups of batter (Pillsbury). Each 6 in pan used 2 cups of batter, I used 2 10" pans for the remaining 8 cups. The 10" usually uses 6 cups for a 2" high cake so mine were about 1.5" high. I actually prefer to do it this way do I can get thicker layers. So I just leveled each 10" cake and filled with chocolate. For the six inch I split each 6" cake and ended up with four 1" cake layers. So the 10" is two layers (probably closer to 3" high) and the 6" is four usually ends up about 4.5-5" high depending on how thick your filling layers are. Whew! Sorry I wasn't more clear, I was focused on showing the frosting technique.

Good luck on your cake, come back and post a link to a photo if you can I'd love to see it!

can you use store bought chocolate icing to crumb coat cake? i plan on using the buttercream icing to tint colors but it wouldnt hurt to see the chocolate thru. can you still use the roller on that icing as well?thanks so much for your help!

Lisa Sundin - I have not tried the roller method on store bought icing but I think it should work, unless it is too stiff, that may just take a little more pressure. The tinted icing should be able to adhere to the crumb coat of store bought icing. Good Luck!

I love this. We are giving my grandson a 16th birthday party and he is all into the camo. I think he will love it and be so surprised when it is cut into. Thanks for sharing. Great job! I hope mine turns out as good.

Honestly I don't know the answer to your question. Were the cake mixes different brands? Maybe one cooked faster than the other. I have noticed with marble cakes that the chocolate always has a different cook time but I don't recall ever having the cake separate. Sorry!

mine looked so good AT FIRST! i put the wax paper on the cake and rolled it after the cake had sat in the fridge 4 20minutes and then when we peeled off the wax paper the icing came off too :( :( :(so now it looks like crap what could have been the problem? should i have left it in the fridge longer, used diff wax paper, rolled lighter?????????????????????????????

My daughter's getting married in a couple of years (they are saving for the house first), and they want a camo wedding because they are both outdoor fishing buffs!! Was wondering how I could get the cake just right, and I think yours gives me ideas!

FANTASTIC job with this cake! I absolutely love it. I noticed you posted the link to Wilton's buttercream icing and I was wondering if you were abole to do the decorating following the regular recipe or did you omit the butter and just use butter flavoring. I noticed they suggested for 'stiffer' product to do it that way. If you were able to still use the butter that would be great! Thanks so much in advance!

I used Wilton recipe with half butter half crisco. The only difference is that I use water instead of milk. You don't really need stiff frosting, actually medium consistency is a little easier to smooth together.

Very cool! I love the idea for a camo cake. My son is having a mud truck themed birthday party so I will use your idea of a camo cake but I will decorate it differently. Very excited to make it and glad I found your site!

I made this cake for my son's birthday. The cake turned out great. The chocolate icing was awesome. The white would not crust over for nothing. When I put in the color, the icing broke down. But it tasted really and everyone got the idea. Do not a total fail. I next time I will try the stiff consistency for the white icing.

Mine are cooling now! Little nervous about the frosting, but I have my foam roller! The guy at Lowes asked me what kind of painting project I was doing ;)Thanks for posting this, my 9 year old wants a camo cake for his bday party and I too panicked until I found this post.

thanks so much for this! my brother is being deployed tmrw and I wanted to make a special cake for his going away party. I'm going to make a sheet cake ( less frosting to make, more space to work with) and put army guys going from home to the desert (crushed Nilla wafers shd make great sand)... Thx again! :-)

I'm making a camo cake for a friend whose son is turning 1. I'm going to do a practice run before I make the actual one for his party, but I was wondering how your smoothing went between the 10" and 6" layers? Did you just roll it up bottom to top? It's rounded I see but not as round as I would expect from using a roller. Also, what brand cake mix did you use seems it seems to have worked well with this method.